Hank's Godchild
by Hearns
Summary: A little one-shot where Hank drives Carly to school. Set right after Bad Moon Rising and Quill. Please Review.


I started writing this story after Bad Moon Rising aired and decided that my next Grimm story should be from Hanks POV as he has come to terms with the Wesen world being so connected to his own personal life.

Further note a reader commented on a little error that I made while writing us story.

I have gone back through and fixed that section so that it reads better.

So sit back and enjoy this little curtain shopping moment.

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Hanks Godchild

By Shannon Hearn

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Hank sat in the driver's seat of his Police cruiser as he had turned to look at his god daughter Carly who he was driving to school this morning.

In the weeks since he had learned of her and her father's Wesen origins, it still blew him away that this blond haired 17-year-old girl who could morph into a coyote like werewolf at any time was the same girl who had done the crayon drawings that had decorated his fridge when she was younger.

Ever since his partner Nick had been able to stop him out of shooting Carly with his gun during the entire standoff situation at the abandoned farm, Hank had slowly over the last few weeks been getting a crash course in the Wesen community. It had taken a couple days for Hank to wrap his head around a lot of the finer details of the world that he had now become part of... But he knew that he was no longer crazy. Now it was up to him to learn to figure out who the good guys and the bad guys were now and Nick was doing his best to teach him.

In the last few days learning that of the things out there that had claws were not always bad people and seeing his friend Jarold change into his native form showed him that. But it was seeing that Mouse girl who worked at the coffee bistro that he got his early morning coffee from was a shocker as he watched her move about behind the counter and hand him his cup of joe.

Hank still saw people change into animals and other assorted beasts and all, but between Nick being there for him and realizing he wasn't crazy, the occurrences had gone down.

Nick had done some research on the subject and found an exercise that along with a pre-existing medical condition that due to Hank's lack of sleep was causing some of his visual hallucinations. Part of it had been written down in the Books of the Grimm as a way to help guide non Grimm family members cope with this world they had been thrown into.

Using an exercise Nick had taught him to control his reactions to seeing the pseudo-Wesen off and on throughout the day that the Mnemonic part of his brain was connecting to the people around him. Hank had started to see some other creatures in the coffee shop. The place was starting to look like storybook from Carly's youth with all of the animal people doing everyday things as his brain started to attach animal values to people's physical characteristics. He had seen so far a few bears, lions, foxes, beavers, and a couple of hideous witches. A Sasquatch individual in a business suit, who looked a little like the man he had shot at the start of this mess was over by the press and go thermos getting refill of his cup of joe. A butch man with pig like features who was wearing a fire fighter's uniform was talking with the Sasquatch as he moved to refill his cup as well.

How many of these people were real Wesen like Carly, Jarold, Rosealee... Monroe? Or like the girl behind the counter, a construct from his sleep deprived mind.

Then Hank saw Monroe come through the door of the coffee shop...but it wasn't...Hank had nearly jumped out of his skin as he saw it wasn't his friend. Hank did his best to control his reaction as he saw through his own magical spell had had created on himself. But how much of that spell was real that had been cast upon this city so that these creatures could live their normal lives among humans. Hank hoped that his brain would soon learn the difference between lack of sleep hallucinations and the real creatures that walked among them.

There standing before him was the creature of his nightmares, but over in the corner as he saw that the werewolf come in with a teenaged werewolf girl who looked like she was deep in conversation with the boy. Hank took a deep breath and cleared his mind and work through his sleep deprived brain.

After sorting out the Coyotl pack mess and the Yellow Plague stuff, Hank figured out that Monroe was probably a member of the same species as the individual that Larry... what's his name was who had died at the start of the entire hunt for Bigfoot mess. At that time the real Monroe had come in and tapped a hand on his shoulder to say Hi.

At least he knew that this person was real and was his friend.

Hank shook his head a few times after that to clear the cobwebs out as Nick walked in and joined them as they started to talk about a case they were all working on that involved Wesen politics. Tonight Nick was going to take Hank to an Eisbiber Lodge meeting so that Hank could get a taste of internal politics that took place in this hidden society given that most of their suspect list consisted of the various political heads of the varying Wesen groups. Nick had used his status to get into these meetings so mostly this was Hank's first ride-along in how this world functioned.

That was when Jarold had given him a call and stated that he needed Hank to drop Carly off at school given that something job related had come up and he had to get in early. So bidding Monroe and Nick bye, he headed off to pick up Carly for school. Hopefully Nick would be able to dig up some more stuff from his books before he headed into the office.

Looking back over at Carly, Hank cleared his throat.

"So Carly, how's school?" Hank said as she looked up from texting her friends on her phone.

There was the long sigh from the youth.

"Okay." There was a pause before she continued. "Still taking advanced AP courses and a few other things that I am interested in." that was when Carly sighed. "So…. still freaked out about the Wesen community." Carly hit the issue in the head. With that Hank scratched the back of his scalp and looked in the rear view mirror before signaling to change lanes.

"Yeah..." Hank paused before he continued. "I mean, Nick has seen much more of it than I have." Hank winced at saying Nick's name. For goodness sake... What kind of creature did Nick look like to Carly when he did his monster transformation. He had seen her along with her Dad change into their other forms and Hank was still getting used to that. But whatever Nick changed into scared this girl so much that she would wolf/coyote out at the mention the guy's name. Hank suspected that it had to with all of the Axe chopping vengeance that Nick's ancestors had done in the past. No wonder some of their suspects rolled so fast in the presence of his partner.

Confess to what you have done or off with your head.

There had been suggestions about what Nick was back during that Rich girl murder case when one of their key suspects offhandedly spilt the beans about what he was to Nick and him. When Nick had come somewhat clean during their off time after the entire Yellow Plague mess that had happened a few days ago, that case had come up as a topic of conversation. Nick had said that they had been dealing with creatures in that case whose name translated loosely as "Bat out of Hell" during that investigation, and well that sort of described what the crime scenes of that case looked like. Add to the equation that Nick had told him about a Grimm weapon being involved in the crimes and things sort of started to fall into place.

The girl had used the weapon which was far louder than a single member of her species against her stepmother and her sisters to claim the family fortune. But her father's friend who happened to be part of the same species had found out and he had attempted to use his sonic powers to stop her thus resulting in the physical injuries she and endured prior to death. As a result he had been killed after when she took a chunk out of his neck before she finally succumbed to her injuries.

Now looking at Carly, Hank had decided that if he was going to be part of this world, he might as well learn about her friends and what they were.

"So, tell me about your friends Carly." Carly turned to look at Hank with some concern. "I mean are they like you?" Hank hoped that she wouldn't take this the wrong way.

"You mean Wesen?" Carly said concerned.

"Yeah... Wesen..." Hank paused worried. "I mean, what are they like? I mean you are Coyote, so are there wolves, bears... seals..."

"Blutbads, Jägerbars, Undinesilkes yeah two of them. Barry and Holly. Barry is a Jägerbar, Bear Wesen and Holly, she is a Blutbad, a wolf type Wesen, mostly I am her tutor in reading as she takes remedial classes to catch up. She and Barry are close, not boyfriend/girlfriend, but more like best pals when they bonded as they were going to the same therapist for some emotional issues.

Carly chuckled at this. "They are the only two people I know that bonded after a Roddy Piper/David Keith fight when it came over diet issues and issues about their parents."

"Diet issues?" Hank said with curiosity. With this Carly started to explain situation.

"Barry and Holly got in a fight over the fact that Barry tried to eat some people a while back when his mom try to force them into some weird Jägerbar coming of age ritual. He doesn't talk about it much due to his dad and some Wesen cop on the police force intervened and stopped him before things got ugly. But Barry's Mom is in jail for kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder." Carly paused for a long time as Hank realized she was remembering her own experiences with her own Wesen heritage. "When Holly found out, she beat the crap out of Barry when she learned that he nearly ate someone all the while she was screaming the words: "Bears Eat Fish! Not People!" Trust me in those fifteen minutes those two gained each other's respect as fighters and Barry treated her to fish tacos when he saw things from her point of view." Carly chuckled at this line as she did her best to impersonate the Blutbad in her Woged voice but Hank looked out of the side of his eyes to keep an eye on the traffic as they made another turn towards the school. "It took a while for Holly to calm down after that, but Barry got the point that one does not mess with a Wielder Blutbad who considers tasting human flesh is the ultimate taboo and with stories of a Grimm floating around at the time I don't blame Holly in slapping some sense into the guy."

Well with that little bit of information Hank learned that there were beings that wouldn't eat you, but would beat the snot out of each other to stay on the straight and narrow if they thought that there was a Grimm coming to chop their head off for even tasting human flesh.

Though were did that dried human organ stuff he and Nick had run into months earlier come into play? It had come from the Calvert Spice Shop, and Rosealee was a Fuchsbau, so what was the significance of that stuff?

Hank got the feeling that he needed more information about this world before he jumped to assumptions, but he knew that one of Carly's friends wasn't using that stuff and would call the cops if she ever found any of that stuff lying around.

"Wow, so you told me about Holly and Barry, but what about Holly's friend..."

"Piper, she is a Hexenbiest ... She and Holly are close due to them being Neighbors and Piper just moved here recently from Seattle because her mom took a job working for the VA clinic." There was a pause from Carly added a little info. "After a fight with her mom when they first moved in, Piper went into the woods to brood and found Holly's bone yard where she was blessing the spare rib bones from that day's dinner. I mean Holly is a bit strange but it is her way of letting the spirit of the animal she had eaten know what she had done hadn't been evil but to sustain a life." Carly moved into telling more about Holly and Piper's first meeting. "Well when Piper tried to scare Holly away in her Hexenbiest form and yelled for several minutes and didn't faze the Blutblad it only took Holly Wogeing her face to put the girl in her place. But for Holly, she just listens to you. She knows what to say in the fewest words possible and it sticks with you in a deep way. For a Hexenbiest like Piper who was on the verge of going dark side, it meant a lot." There was a grin forming on Carly's face as she remembered the meeting. "When Holly introduced Piper to me, it was great that she made another friend even though Hexenbiests tend to not act human while around other Wesen. But for Holly and me it felt refreshing and in a way Piper felt less lonely that we found each other. That and we tend to raid eachother's closets to improve our fashion wardrobes and less like were dressed by our parents." Hank rolled his eyes, girls well be girls, but he felt a little sad that he was losing the little girl who carried around her Wile E. Coyote stuffed animal that was decked out in a bicycle helmet and a mini-police flack jacket her mom had made before she had died. But the additional garb did make sense given Carly's heritage and she was just being prepared for the worse. Hank saw that Carly was like her father in more ways than one and marched to her own beat and he knew that these friends were the glue that kept her sane. "We are like the Howling Bad Girl Three Musketeers, Blutbad, Coyotl, and Hexenbiest." With that Carly howled.

"Hexenbiest?" Hank had heard the word several times throughout this little talk about her friend so he decided to press for some more details. "You mentioned it a few times without giving me an idea of what it meant. For all I know she might look like a Wookie wearing a ten gallon hat." Carly giggled at that image and looked at him. Then she realized that he had no idea what Piper was and for all he knew, how he had described her was what he saw Piper as.

"Um..." Hank saw that Carly had to think about how to best describe this new creature to him before she proceeded along. "Remember all of this Disney films where the beautiful evil witch takes on the form of an ugly hag, well that is what Piper morphs into. Her Mom is a doctor at the VA clinic and that is the main reason they moved down here. Hexenbiest tend to be either doctors or lawyers. That and they have this thing for Mirrors. Lots of Mirrors."

"Like Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, who is the most beautiful of them all?"

"Yeah..." Hank membered the Shad crime scene. All of the mirrors.

"Would a Hexenbiest have any natural enemies or do anything that would have someone gunning for them?" Hank had realized that in the human normal world the answers for some cases didn't make sense. But what if in the Wesen world they did.

"Uh, yeah..." Carly looked at him concerned. "What is this about?"

"Just a case that I am working." Hank said being truthful. "Because you just described the crime scene where I found someone murdered." With that Carly's eyes looked down a bit worried.

"Oh..." Carly realized that this was another case that her God Father was working in the Wesen world. "So... what else do you want me to tell you?"

"Well we were at the Hexenbiest natural enemies." Carly nodded.

"Well there are Mellifers, they are Bee Wesen. Real heavy in the flash mobs and poisons." Ouch... another crime scene. Hank remembered that case of the women murdered at Adalind's law firm.

"Who else..." Hank said worried but he was at least getting a suspect list. "Well Piper said that her family distanced themselves from the Royals a few generations ago after the mess with the White terror in Europe and they sided with the Fuchsbau and a few other Wesen groups to protect them from the purges that were taking place because of interspecies marriage crap."

"So some of these Royals were part of the..."

"Nazi Party... Yeah, or at least seeking to influence political decisions for their own gain when the leaders ever croaked under mysterious reasons. From what Piper said was that when things went south, well they went with the winning side, but kept the resources they had gained such as money, and government resources. But mostly these influence pedaling Wesen went criminal over the years still wanting power and corrupting whatever offices and criminal organizations they could get their claws into. Something that Piper's family couldn't deal with so they broke away and went legit."

"So, if these criminal Wesen gained a few guys who knew wet work, they kept them on the payroll."

"I think so..." Carly said getting worried. "Uncle Hank where is this going?"

"Just trying to get the lay of the land, but finding out that there is a creature mafia in town, not something I was ready for." Hank said looking at her before tussling her hair. "Anyway's you just helped me with a few cases in figuring out some of the suspects involved." Carly looked concerned.

"So why don't you ask your Grimm partner about some of this stuff?" Carly said stating a point.

"Well, he lets on some of this stuff, but I think between him and the rest of his contacts and what happened to his girlfriend Juliette, he has been a little busy with personal stuff." Hank said the truth. "I can see the toll that it has taken on him concealing this stuff and with what happened with Juliette..." there was a long sigh. "I think slowly coming clean about what he is has been one of the hardest things for him to do." Carly grew a little distant at that but understanding.

"I never thought of Grimms having the same problem of hiding what they were from their friends and family."

"Yeah, well I think he is doing his best given the situation he has been in."

"What situation?" Carly said worried.

"A couple of weeks ago Nick's girlfriend Juliette gad an allergic reaction to a cat scratch and lost bits and pieces of her memory." There was a long pause from Hank. "Nick came clean about being a Grimm to her the night before that happened." Carly looked concerned. "Nick is taking it hard, I mean it is like is back to day one of their relationship three years ago, I see him struggling at times. Mostly he has been pushing himself into his work to keep sane as he tries to work up the courage to tell Juliette what he is again." Hank shook his head. "Between this mess with some of our more recent cases and cleaning up from the aftermath of the Yellow Plague incident a few weeks ago. We have been busy. That and my recent freak out from seeing you and your dad change I am trying to keep my head above water."

"Yellow Plague outbreak?". Carly sounded scared. Given what he had Nick had dug up on that stuff, this was the Black Death of the Wesen world. It was like saying there was an Ebola outbreak in your high school and you would die. Quickly Hank decided to finish his story about what had happened.

"Yeah, me and Nick were able to stop it from spreading but our friend Wu is still a little shook up from his first officer related shooting. The guy had to shoot the Patient Zero when she came at him with a knife and a screwdriver. We only got that lead after investigating an incident of violent road rage her husband we had been called to." There was a long sigh. "The other two that had gotten sick are now recovering from when we had to manhandle them down so that we could treat them." Carly looked still scared but the images were seared into her mind.

"Sorry about scaring you like that Carly, just that when I saw one of the people who had gotten sick from this stuff just drop, I just kept thinking about you and your Dad. The look on your face when your mom died, that is something I don't' want you to go through again." With that Hank took Carly's hand and squeezed it to be the loving and caring uncle she knew. Seeing Carly grin Hank decided to change the subject to something lighter. "So… seeing any boys? Hank knew that she would deny that information but was shocked at her response.

"No so much seeing but interested in asking to the Sadie Hawkins dance." Carly said.

"Name." Hank was now interested.

"His name is Eduardo Miguel Escoban the Third, he is a Fuchsbau... a Fox Wesen. he's a nice guy. He does the High School Newspaper. You would probably like him given that he is thinking about going into sports journalism." Carly said glowing. Seeing her grin like this made his day. No matter how bad today would get, this was one of the better moments.

"Have you told your dad about him?" Hank said listening to her.

"Yeah, he knows about Eduardo. He did the entire fake bring home a textbook trick." There was a pause as the typical long sigh that all girls do when they picture their boyfriends next to the latest screen hunk of the time. Yeah, normal teenaged hormone driven behavior; where the music makes sense and your head in up in the clouds. Maybe this world wasn't all that different than the one he had grown up in. It just was filled with more colorful individuals. With that they neared Carly's school.

"Thanks Carly for... you know..." Hank tried his best to communicate how important this little bit of normal time meant to him.

"Having a moment of normal." Carly grinned as she watched as Hank worked his way through the traffic as he moved to the turn in near the front door. "Yeah... I hope that I didn't freak you out too much about my friends."

"No... You didn't freak me out about your friends. Considering that your dad called all of them when you went missing. I just wanted to know that you have a tight knit group that was searching everywhere for you." With that Hank pulled up to the front of the school to see several girls standing by the curb.

"Thanks Uncle Hank." With that Carly moved over and kissed Hank on the cheek and got out of the police cruiser and joined up with the girls.

Hank watched as Carly and her friends walked together but one of the girls hung back. Hank watched her for a moment as even with a pair of unisex sports sunglasses her body language struck him as strange as she tiled her head from side to side with yellow eyes glowing through the lenses. Hank felt that he knew the girl from somewhere, just that he couldn't place where he had seen her. Right then the girl was standing her ground and watching his every subtle move. It was like a wolf was looking at him out of curiosity trying to figure out what he was going to do next before she attacked or moved away. That was when Carly came back and waved towards Hank and the girl joined Carly who realized that Hank wasn't a threat to her or her friend.

"Come on Holly." Carly said as the girl waved at him and went with his God Daughter. It was strange but comforting feeling he had like he had seen that girl before. But knowing that this was the girl Carly had talked about and in a way he knew that once Carly was on the other side of those doors she would have a protector from the troubles of high school life.

As Hank pulled out of the High School driveway and back into traffic his phone rang.

"Griffin." Hank said as the phone went the Bluetooth headset he had on.

"Hank, its Nick. We need to meet about the case we are working. I got a lead from my books in relation to some of the political stuff." With that Hank knew that his job had started for the day.

"Okay... I'm on my way down. I just finish dropping Carly off at school."

"Okay. I'll wait for you to show up in the office." And with that the call ended.

"Look like it is time to deal with the real monsters in this world." Hank said feeling that the lines of Good and Evil were now a little better drawn and that these creatures that walked in it were like everyone else. They all had the possibility for doing good or bad things in their lives and to others. It was his job to protect the innocent and he would do so to his fullest extent.

His duty to Serve and Protect felt more grounded now. Maybe it was time for him to accept this new world for what it was: Something new and wonderful that his life needed.

He did have one of the better days of his life when he had saved Carly. Maybe that is what he needed: Fresh eyes to see the world anew and let a little magic in as well.

Checking the clock on the car's dashboard he saw what time it was. Now it was time to get to work so that he could fight crime and when needed to kick the appropriate ass.

With that Hank pulled out of the school and proceeded onto work. At his first stop sign he heard from an open top jeep the sounds of a song playing. It was the theme to Cops and like all songs that get stuck in one's head he started to hum along. As the Jeep made a turn and the music faded away as he drove down the road to the station, Hank started to loosely sing.

"Bad boys, bad boys. What are you going to do when the cops come for you?"

For good or ill, this was going to be one of his better days.

For one thing he knew: he was no longer crazy.

He had just taken a little stride through the edge to the Twilight Zone and didn't mind the view even if it brought darkness with it. He had seen the power and goodness of the light as well and if this world needed another knight to protect it from harm, he would gladly accept the role that had been placed upon him.

He was a cop… And he was proud to wear the shield of his protectorate.

End.

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Yes, Holly is Holly Clark and Barry is Barry Rabe.

That little section of them doing the Bears eat Fish fight comes from a little ideas I was working with for a Grimm story before I started writing Bird's View. But I didn't have the right context to put it in until I started writing this story. That and it comes from the line from Finding Nemo: "Fish are Friends, not food." And in a way putting Holly in this story is my way to make up to the Holly Clark fans out there.

Further Note: I had to put in the theme to Cops in at the end because it felt appropriate for Hank's mood.

And if you are wondering why Hank is able to see Wesen and he isn't a Grimm. it is called a Influence of Processing Load psychosis and it is where the mind is active, but is able to access the information in the imagination when it comes to attention driven stimuli in the environment, most often caused by sleep deprivation and taps into the part of the mind relating to image association. It is where you are able to match words in a foreign language, want to remember what a person looks like, or while you are writing something on a keyboard. You know what is there, your brain just fills in the blanks.

But it works something like this:

It might not be Grimm vision, but for Hank his brain begins to graph Mnemonic data onto those he knows around him and does a boot up of extreme levels a fight or flight instincts with hostile animal constructs. He might not be able to see all the Wesen when they are hidden, but he can do a ballpark assumption of what they are and with Nick's help he can hold his own knowing when to punch through it.

Pretty much this is why some folks have the appearance of looking like their pets but don't actually do.

I hope this helps you out.

Please Review below and tell me what you think of this little short story.

I await your responses.

Hearns.


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